


The Tarn-Hag's Son

by runwithneedles



Category: Beowulf (Poem)
Genre: Beowulf - Freeform, Blood, Death, Gen, Grendel - Freeform, Grendel's mother - Freeform, Infanticide, Violence, Yuletide Madness, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, death mention, fresne, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runwithneedles/pseuds/runwithneedles
Summary: Part one of my Yuletide 2018 installment for fresne: a charming little snapshot of Grendel's relationship with his mother. I kinda just ran with the implications in the text about their demonic/eldritch nature.I am not a medievalist so this may be WILDLY off-base, but I had fun writing it.I have an illustration or two to add also, hopefully within the week. :)Somewhat influenced by the descriptions of draconic intelligence in The Hobbit and Terry Pratchett's books. A cold, ancient sort of intelligence and an almost loveless bond, with less potential for the redemption and forgiveness humans are so fond of in stories.The other part is the human perspective, with a little more warmth than this one lol.Hope you enjoy!





	The Tarn-Hag's Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fresne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/gifts).



They live in the deep, and dark, and intolerable cold, but if you have always lived in the cold, you don’t notice. They do not need warmth any more than they need air, being as they are part serpent, part beast, part human, part demon. There is a different fire within, sustaining them, ancient and murky, malice given form. Malice and bond: the sort of bond so fierce it is a dream and a wrong turn away from mothers consuming their young. Do not think of human bonds: those are too young on the earth to bear much resemblance here. Think of the nature of nature: unfeeling power, capricious and terrible, nurturing and protective, always, always hungry. Forces bound together in a participatory struggle, tireless and patient and deeply cruel in their eternal parallel.

He and his mother do not speak to each other, their minds have the same boundaries, the same needs, the same vicious desires, and they know each other’s hearts as they know their own. He knows she hates the bright hall above the mere with the same miry loathing. He crawls out in search of food again, feeling her approval follow him onto the dark land. 

It does not go as he planned. 

Pain is the first companion as he drags himself back, his shoulder a hotbed of searing fire. It’s gone, a part of him is gone. He wishes he’d had the wherewithal to take it with him, but the warrior, the one with the boar’s-head helm and a golden fire in his eyes...he will not go back. Returning for his arm would mean certain death, and the fact fills him with loathing, for the warrior and for himself. 

Fear is the second companion. 

He fears the warrior, yes, but he fears his mother too. She is proud, immovably so. She will know, she will know he’s been bested by a human. a man! one of those mewling soon-dying vermin! He has a feeling or a vision, of tearing teeth wreaking havoc on him, destroying him so his weakness cannot spread. 

Fear behind and fear before. 

He falls into the mere exhausted, his gore trailing after him like a bright banner. It muddies the water, turns it shades of scarlet and black.

Ah! The cold! His iron skin had protected him all these endless years, but now he’s ripped open, and the icy water reaches its fingers into his blood, poisoning it, slowing it, curdling it. There is a voice in the water, her voice, the first voice he knew, the voice that gave him life and fire so long ago. Now it is turning, from fierce closeness to rage, to disappointment. He feels as if the voice is speeding his death, taking the old eldritch power out of his dying body, revoking his claim to the mere, to the world, to anything. She is taking it for herself, retaking the seed she planted.

He drifts like smoke from a dying fire, his life’s blood swirling, weakening, dissipating

 

gone.


End file.
